Plot: Forell,
a member of the Minbari religious caste, arrives on Babylon 5 with disturbing
news for Delenn. The Norsai, a peaceful, agrarian race living on the borders of
Minbari space, have come under attack from unknown aliens. The Pak’ma’ra are
also believed to have suffered raids. Delenn decides to take a taskforce of
White Star ships out to investigate.

On Mars a hotel is bombed by elements of the Resistance
working without the permission of the high command. Number One disciplines her
supporters and Franklin and Marcus meet with the other rebels, offering Babylon
5’s full support. In return the rebels are not to hit civilian targets and are
to keep a low profile until a plan for removing Clark and liberating Mars and
Proxima III is fully worked out. In return, they will ensure that Mars is given
its independence from Earth once President Clark has been removed from office.

The White Star taskforce reaches Norsai space and encounters
a group of alien warships. Forell pulls a gun on Delenn and forces the White
Stars to follow the alien vessels to their mothership. An alien shuttle docks
with the White Star and a strange, humanoid creature who seems to shimmer in
and out of existence comes on board. It identifies itself as a Drakh, although
it refuses to disclose whether that’s its name or the name of its species
(Delenn correctly identifies it as the species). Forell tells Delenn that
events on Minbar are spiralling out of control. The warrior caste has evicted
the entire population of a mixed-caste city and taken it over for themselves.
The Minbari populace had to walk several hundred miles to the nearest city
through freezing conditions and more than half of them died, including members
of Forell’s family. The warriors are taking more and more power for themselves
on Minbar and the religious caste is starting to oppose them. Forell fears that
civil war may engulf the Minbari. He has contacted these aliens, the Drakh, and
plans to ally them to the religious caste, even though Minbari do not use
outsiders to settle inside affairs. Delenn agrees to further talks with the
Drakh, but when the Drakh disclose that their homeworld was recently destroyed
Lennier becomes disturbed and manages to warn Delenn that the Drakh may be the
Shadow servants they saw fleeing Z’ha’dum several months ago (D7).
Unfortunately, Forell mentions Delenn’s name, a name the Drakh recognise. Once
the Drakh ambassador has returned to his ship the other Drakh fighters target
the White Stars with their weapons. Thanks to some impressive manoeuvres the
White Stars manage to escape to hyperspace, but Forell is killed in the battle.
After effecting minor repairs, the White Stars return to normal space and
destroy the Drakh fleet.

Sheridan, increasingly tired of ISN propaganda directed
against Babylon 5, begins renovating the War Room with a new idea in mind. He
plans to set up a rival news service, “The Voice of the Resistance”, with
Ivanova as its main anchor. Ivanova isn’t thrilled about the idea but agrees to
take part after her success in updating allied ships on enemy fleet movements
during the Shadow War (D4-D5).
Delenn arrives back on the station and tells Sheridan that there are troubles
on her homeworld. She will be leaving for a while and hopes this time apart
will also give Sheridan the resolve to deal with the situation on Earth. They
have one last dinner together before she departs for Minbar.

MORE AFTER THE JUMP

Dating the Episode: It
takes a few days to assemble the Resistance leaders on Mars, and for Delenn to
return to Minbari space and then back to B5.

The Arc: Babylon 5 offers its support to the Mars
Resistance in return for the promise of independence. This storyline continues
to evolve over the next few episodes.

Sheridan’s role in putting down the Food Riots on Mars
(mentioned in C16 and NOV9) in the early 2250s is
well-remembered by the Resistance.

Mars and Proxima III are both holding out against Earthforce,
but the fourth planet to declare independence in C10,Orion VII, is not
mentioned again in the series. Presumably it has already been retaken by
Earthforce.

The Voice of the Resistance (VOR) is established in this
episode. We see it operating in episodes D12 and D14-D17.

We discover in this episode that the Shadow allies we saw
abandoning Z’ha’dum in D7 are known as the Drakh. The Drakh know who
Delenn is and presumably want revenge for her part in convincing the Shadows to
leave the galaxy. The Drakh next appear in episodes E17-E18 and NOV13-NOV15.
We discover from later episodes that the Drakh emissary who appears in this
episode is not a true Drakh, rather a representative of the Drakh who actually
belongs to another species.

Trouble has broken out on Minbar, as hinted at in episode C19.
Civil war, unthinkable just a year ago, is now a distinct possibility. This
storyline continues in episodes D13-D14.

Background: Although we don’t see them, the Norsai
are a peaceful, agrarian race located just on the borders of Minbari space.
They have been allied to the Minbari for several centuries. The alliance was
organised and is maintained by the religious caste.

Marcus mentions that he is from Arisia Colony, which is the
first time the planet is mentioned in-dialogue on the show itself, although it
was previously mentioned in both background materials and in NOV9.

White Star 16 is
the only ship lost in the battle with the Drakh, whilst the Drakh suffer a
total fleet loss. This suggests that the Drakh warships are marginally inferior
to Minbari technology.

The Omega-class destroyer Juno is seen orbiting Mars. By D15
it will have been reassigned to the Proxima III blockade.

Sikar is a mixed-caste city in the southern hemisphere of
Minbar. It is located on the edge of the southern polar region and has recently
been taken over by the warrior caste, who forced the religious caste to leave.
The nearest city to it is Drogani. Dronya is another mixed-caste Minbari city
that the warrior caste has taken over for themselves.

There are design similarities between the Minbari and
Centauri PPG pistols.

White Stars have an “artificial intelligence matrix” which
is quite sophisticated and capable of pulling off complex manoeuvres which
Minbari warrior caste members normally take five years to master.

Three-pronged jump gates are located in Minbari space, as
well as Centauri and Narn.

Interlac has been mentioned before, but this is the first
episode to really delve into it. Interlac is an artificial language noted for its
incredible ease of learning and use by multiple alien communities.

References: Arisia
is a reference to the Lensmen space
opera series by E.E. “Doc” Smith, which Straczynski has noted was an influence
on him as a young reader.

“Interlac” is a reference to the DC Comics universe, where
Interlac is the language of the 30th Century United Planets. A
popular DC fanzine also used the name.

Unanswered Questions:
What are the Drakh hoping to get out of their deal with Forell? A chance to
infiltrate the Minbari like they have the Centauri? Why not just slap a Keeper
on him?

Is the creature in this episode a Drakh or a member of a
servitor species? What is the weird glowing effect around it supposed to
signify?

Mistakes, Retcons and
Lamentations: A Drazi ship is used to stand in for both the Norsai vessel
at the start of the episode and a Pak’ma’ra one later on. It might be that the
Drazi sell their ships to other races, but it would seem unlikely they would
sell front-line warship designs to other worlds, given the danger of them using
the ships to attack other people and then blame the Drazi for it.

Franklin sends a video call to Babylon 5. He transmits the
message with his face clearly visible, but asks the recipient not to respond so
EarthGov won’t know who he’s talking to. However, Franklin is known to be the
chief medical officer of Babylon 5 so it’s quite clearly going to B5. This
deception seems a little pointless.

Sheridan promises to give Mars its independence after Clark
is unseated. That might be generous, but it seems rather undemocratic. Maybe
promising a referendum on the issue might have been fairer?

The Drakh mothership moves towards the jump gate rather than
generate its own jump point. It might be that the initial exchange of fire
disabled the Drakh hyperdrive, but this
never confirmed in dialogue.

Behind the Scenes: Mira
Furlan was dissatisfied with Delenn’s arc in late Season 3/early Season 4,
where a lot of her character material seemed to be tied into Sheridan’s story
and supporting him rather than taking action herself. Straczynski agreed, and
had already been planning a new story where Delenn took charge of the situation
more forcefully, which Furlan was very happy with.

The Drakh costume and make-up was considered to be
sub-standard by the production team, so a shimmering CG effect was added to the
creature in post-production to try to hide how bad it was. When we see the
Drakh again, they have had a substantial (and much more successful redesign).
Straczynski initially explained this by suggesting that the Drakh in this
episode is an emissary of a different species. However, the Drakh’s head is
covered by a hood and the poor facial make-up could also be explained away as a
mask.

Jean-Luc Martin played the Drakh Emissary. He was under a
lot of makeup and heavy costumes with electrical wires running into it (to
power his translator unit). At one point the wires malfunctioned and he
suffered a serious shock and slight burns. He carried on regardless, earning
the respect of the rest of the cast and crew.

G.W. Stevens, who played Forell, had problems remembering
his lines, leading to numerous reshoots and multiple takes. Combined with
Martin’s injury, this led to what Bill Mumy recalled as one of the most
torturous days in the history of shooting the show.

The repurposing of the War Room as the Voice of the
Resistance news centre allowed the production team to continue using the
expensive War Room set which had been built for Season 3. Due to the
curtailment of the Shadow War arc at the start of Season 4, the set had not
been in use for anywhere near as long as had first been thought, so this change
allowed them to get more use out of it.

CNN reporter Dennis Michael plays one of the Minbari
reacting in fear to the Drakh emissary as he boards the ship. Michael was a
huge fan of Babylon 5 and gave it
positive coverage whilst it was on-air. He previously played a Narn in B21.

Richard Biggs enjoyed playing Franklin as being outside
MedLab, getting involved in a romance and doing other things outside his
comfort zone. He felt that Franklin’s experiences in “finding himself” (between
C15 and C21) had given him back his confidence in tackling new challenges.

Familiar Faces: Paolo
Seganti (Philippe) is an Italian actor who has starred in both American and
European TV and movie projects. Oddly, he also played a character called
Philippe on The Nanny in 1996
(perhaps a nod at unimaginative US names for European characters). He also
appeared in L.A. Confidential, Pirates: Blood Brothers and Largo Winch. He most recently had
recurring roles on One Life to Live
and Cleaners.

G.W. Stevens (Forell) had previously appeared on Murder, She Wrote and Baywatch before appearing on Babylon 5. He continued to have
occasional guest shots on shows including The
X-Files.

Jean-Luc Martin (Drakh Emissary) is a former member of the Cirque de Solei and an experienced
stuntman.

Review: An effective action/adventure story for
Delenn is undercut by the Drakh Emissary looking like a giant disco-dancing
monkey and some clunkily unimaginative CGI, not to mention a weak performance
by guest actor G.W. Stevens (who apparently couldn’t remember his lines and you
can tell). The scenes on Mars and Babylon 5 are more effective, with some good
Franklin/Marcus and Ivanova/Sheridan material. Overall an episode that does
more setup for the future than being fully satisfying in its own right, but
eminently watchable. ***½

Number One: “You’re a liar but my kind of liar.”

Sheridan: “The duration is going to be a lot longer
than the war.”

Delenn: “Humans form communities and from that
diversity comes a strength no single race can withstand. That is your greatest
strength.”

Plot: Garibaldi’s
new investigations business is becoming more successful, but he gets annoyed
when Sheridan sends Zack to confiscate his weapon, comlink and security
identicard. When Wade offers him a new job in protecting his employer when he
arrives on the station, Garibaldi accepts.

Sheridan holds a meeting with G’Kar and Londo. There are
growing numbers of raids and attacks along the borders of many of the races.
These may be pirates taking advantage of the cessation of the Shadow War to hit
convoys and colonies whilst the governments are repairing their forces, but
Sheridan is also concerned about the Drakh reported by Delenn. He wants to have
the White Star fleet patrol the borders of all the major governments to keep an
eye out for trouble, but thinks that the League worlds will prove troublesome.
He wants the Narn and Centauri to set an example by allowing the use of White
Star ships in their space. G’Kar and Londo both agree.

Franklin arrives back on Babylon 5 to find the
transformation of the War Room into the VOR studio in full swing. Ivanova is
worried that they don’t have enough power to get past the jammers preventing
direct communication between Earth and B5, but Franklin suggests using the
Great Machine on Epsilon III to bolster the power of the transmission. Annoyed
that she didn’t think of that, Ivanova sets out for the planet below. She is
surprised to encounter Zathras, despite the fact that he vanished back in time
last year (C17), and is even more startled to learn that there are ten
brothers in the family Zathras. This Zathras agrees to arrange the power link
between the Great Machine and Babylon 5.

Garibaldi uses a back-up security card to get himself and
Wade into the customs hall. Wade tells him there has been a change of plan and
his employer can’t make it. He is sending his wife instead. Garibaldi is
shocked to discover that his employer is William Edgars, the head of Edgars Industries,
one of the eight largest megacorporations in the Earth Alliance and the richest
man to live on Mars, and even more so that his wife is Garibaldi’s old
girlfriend, Lise Hampton (A19, A20)! Lise tells Garibaldi she divorced
her previous husband, Franz, but married Edgars because he provided for her and
genuinely cares for her. She has been sent to negotiate with representatives of
a secret consortium who are working for Edgars. Garibaldi gets them Downbelow
to the meeting place and discovers that the consortium are representatives of
alien governments. Edgars Industries has identified a genetic weakness in
telepaths that might develop into a virus if left unchecked and is working on a
cure. Alien scientists are helping in the development of the virus, but there
are some who want all telepaths dead and will do whatever it takes to stop the
cure getting to Mars. Sure enough, they are attacked at the meeting, but manage
to escape. Garibaldi discovers that, puzzlingly, the attackers are themselves
telepaths. He gets word to Zack to have them stopped and arrested, but they
kill themselves rather than be taken. Lise gets off the station with the cure
and back to Mars, whilst Sheridan warns Garibaldi again that he works on B5 at
his sufferance and any more of these unexplained incidents will not be
tolerated. Back in his quarters Garibaldi receives a transmission from William
Edgars himself, offering to put him on a retainer for his services. Garibaldi
accepts.

The VOR transmits for the first time and Ivanova begins
broadcasting “the truth” to the masses.

Dating the Episode: Franklin
and Marcus return to Babylon 5. Assuming they take as circuitous a route back
as they did in, this episode takes place at least two weeks after the previous
one. It may just be a few days later if they had a faster extraction route.

The Arc: The VOR goes on-line, powered by the Great
Machine on Epsilon III. We see it in action over much of the next five
episodes.

Sheridan makes the Centauri and Narn agree to let the White
Star fleet patrol their borders. This pays off in episodes D13 and D15.

We learn that Garibaldi’s mysterious benefactor, and Wade’s
employer, is William Edgars, the head of the eighth-largest company in the
Earth Alliance. Edgars Industries thinks that there might be a genetic threat
to telepaths and is working on a cure for use pre-emptively if necessary.
However, at least one faction of telepaths (who may or may not be working for
Psi Corps) want the cure for themselves, whilst other groups want telepaths wiped
out for good. This plot strand continues in episodes D14-D17.

Curiously, the Psi Corps agent fails to shoot Garibaldi in
the air vent and lets him go, whilst Garibaldi is similarly reluctant to shoot
the telepath. This is explained in D17.

Background: The Earth Alliance administrative centre
on Mars is called Marsdome (as opposed to Earthdome on Earth).

Babylon 5’s interior air ducts are made of a relatively
light metal which PPGs can shoot through relatively easily. The bulkhead doors
are much more formidable (as shown when the criminals have to burn their way
through) and the exterior hull is much thicker, so is not in danger from PPG
blasts.

The Aries – or Ares – colony is mentioned.

The Great Machine has a weather control system.

Lise Hampton was born on Mars. She had her daughter Deborah shortly
after the events of A19, but her
ex-husband Franz kept her after a custody battle. Lise hasn’t seen Deborah in
over a year.

There are ten brothers in the Family Zathras. All are called
Zathras, with slightly different syllable stresses which are undetectable to
human ears. They are identical to one another.

Edgars Industries is the largest pharmaceutical company on
Mars. It has facilities both on Mars itself and on its moons, Phobos and
Deimos.

References: The Daffy Duck cartoon Garibaldi is
watching is Duck Amuck! (1953). The
cartoon sees Daffy realise he is being controlled by forces he can’t see or
understand (in this case, the animator, who is eventually revealed to be Bugs
Bunny). Straczynski noted this was a deliberate choice.

The Voice of the Resistance is inspired by the French
Resistance in World War II, who broadcast clandestine radio news programmes
from within Nazi-occupied France. It’s also a reference to Radio Londres (“Radio London”), a news service occupied by Free
French journalists from London and broadcast into France to give more accurate
news and information, as well as coded messages to the Resistance. For example,
the first stanza of Paul Verlain’s poem Chanson
d’automne was broadcast on 6 June 1944 to let the Resistance know that the
invasion of France would begin within 24 hours. The service ran from June 1940
to late 1944, when the German surrender of Paris and subsequent military
defeats effectively ended the need for it.

Unanswered Questions:
Why do the telepaths – presumably Psi Corps agents – kill themselves when
discovered? Are their paymasters worried that Lyta Alexander will rip important
information from their minds? Given how few and valuable telepaths are, simply
letting them die seems extravagant.

Mistakes, Retcons and
Lamentations: The ship exiting B5’s docking bay in the teaser looks far too
large to actually fit in the docking bay.

Based on signage, Garibaldi and Wade pass through a bulkhead
door in Grey 8 and arrive in the main docking bay, which given the station’s
internal layout is physically impossible (Grey Sector is at the other end of
the carousel, about four miles from the docking bay at the far end of Blue
Sector). I suspect that this was supposed to be Blue 8 but there was a mistake either in the script or by the set
dressers.

When Sheridan meets with Zack in his office, the lights are
turned way down low for no apparent reason.

Garibaldi gives Lise the wrong location to head to (Docking
Bay 3) so she’ll broadcast it in a panic to any telepaths listening. However,
telepaths require a direct line of sight to pick up thoughts, and indeed this
episode confirms this by having the telepaths only pick up Garibaldi’s
information about Lise and Wade when they see and scan him. So Lise thinking
about the wrong location in the vent out of any line of sight from a telepath
shouldn’t work.

Actress Denise Gentile is visibly laughing at the conclusion
of the air duct scene, then seems slightly surprised when Jerry Doyle goes on
with the next line and recovers to complete the scene. It feels like the wrong
take was used or the scene should have been reshot.

Not necessarily a mistake, but Lise not being able to see
her daughter Deborah because she has no resources and being married to one of
the richest men on Mars seems like a contradiction. It seems like William
Edgars’ significant financial resources and government contacts should have
allowed her to get access, at least.

Behind the Scenes: Straczynski
wanted to do more scenes where the actors could show off their skills. He wrote
the Ivanova/Zathras scene as a continuous, four-minute take with no cuts or
edits and was very happy to see Claudia Christian and Tim Choate nailing the
scene perfectly. Just to be sure, they filmed the scene seventeen times from
start to finish, but it was the second take that was used.

Babylon 5 was
shot and is owned by Warner Brothers, which also owns the Looney Tunes, which
made getting permission to use the Daffy
Duck cartoon easier than from an external company. However, Straczynski
still needed to convince the WB brass to let them do it, which required “some
manoeuvring”.

The air duct getting shot up was achieved with small
explosive squibs and then CG shots being painted over the top. The shoot
required the actors to climb directly over the squibs before they went off,
which caused director David Eagle some headaches in terms of safety (especially
after the “Ulkesh head incident” from D4),
but eventually they pulled it off without a problem.

Familiar Faces: Charles
Walker (Ben) started his career in the 1970s, appearing in shows like The Bionic Woman and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.
Other roles included guest shots on Matlock,
Quantum Leap, Columbo, Picket Fences, The Practice, Charmed and Everybody Hates
Chris. His most recent TV role was as a minister on a 2012 episode of
comedy show Community.

Richard Horvitz (Mark) is a prolific voice-over artist. He
is best-known for playing Kaos on the various Skylanders video games and spin-off TV shows.

This episode marks Tim Choate’s final appearance on Babylon 5 as Zathras (or a Zathras). He does reappear
on Crusade as a different alien.

Review: Bringing Garibaldi back to the fore and
giving him a story where he can be heroic is a good move, wrong-footing the
audience who expects him to become a villain. For an actor whose inexperience
was painfully obvious in Season 1, Jerry Doyle has improved a lot to this point
and is handling everything Straczynski can throw at him. Unfortunately, the
episode feels a bit rushed with some schoolboy directing and editing errors
(not reshooting the scene or using a different take when Denise Gentile starts
grinning like a loon before realising the scene isn’t over yet is a bit
painful). Londo and G’Kar are also a bit lost in the mix at this point and feel
shoe-horned into the episode to justify their fees. Ivanova as the voice of
B5’s anti-propaganda news channel feels like a weirdly timely idea today and
it’s always fun to see Zathras doing Zathras stuff, even if it’s the very
height of self-indulgence.

***½

Wade: “At this point, Mr. Garibaldi is eminently
expendable.”

Ivanova: “You can’t kill the truth, and the truth is
back in business.”

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